Creating hard and soft links using PowerShell

Question

Can PowerShell 1.0 create hard and soft links analogous to the Unix variety?

If this isn't built in, can someone point me to a site that has a ps1 script that mimics this?

This is a necessary function of any good shell, IMHO. :)

Windows 10 users see stackoverflow.com/a/34905638/195755 . Windows 10 it is built-in. Copy/Paste: New-Item -Type and press tab to cycle through the options. Hardlink, SymbolicLink, and Junction appear for me. Works Win 10, Server 2016+, or older OS with Powershell 5.0+ installed via Windows Management Framework 5.0+. — yzorg
– yzorg, Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 21:01
I can't find decent MSDN/TechNet documentation for New-Item -Type HardLink nor New-Item -Type SymbolicLink. New-Item docs link to help about_Providers, it suggests you read help for each provider (which isn't linked). But if you google it there is plenty of buzz in the PowerShell community around New-Item -Type HardLink. It looks like the PowerShell engineering team has come up with provider extension points that stump the docs team. — yzorg
– yzorg, Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 21:06
WARNING! -- While it is very easy to create hardlinks, it may be quite a challenge to remove them securely. That is because the tools are not easily available in native Powershell while Windows like to lock file access and keep files in memory (thus not always removable without a reboot.) Please see my post here. — not2qubit
– not2qubit, Commented Oct 5, 2020 at 1:26
Can we consider removing the version 1.0 from the question? With the number of votes I'd bet 99.9% of folks hitting this page are NOT don't care about 1.0. — yzorg
– yzorg, Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 16:10

Martin Schneider · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-14 09:45:21Z

485

Windows 10 (and Powershell 5.0 in general) allows you to create symbolic links via the New-Item cmdlet.

Usage:

New-Item -Path C:\LinkDir -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value F:\RealDir

Or in your profile:

function make-link ($target, $link) {
    New-Item -Path $link -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value $target
}

Turn on Developer Mode to not require admin privileges when making links with New-Item:

edited Sep 14, 2018 at 9:45

Martin Schneider

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answered Jan 20, 2016 at 16:41

jocassid

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9 Comments

Aaron Thomas Over a year ago

This link is now broken due to MS rearranging documentation. I found a current working link at technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849795.aspx

Daniel Fisher lennybacon Over a year ago

New-Item -Path C:\LinkDir -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value F:\RealDir

papo Over a year ago

since Windows v1703, mklink allows creating symlinks without account elevation, if Developer mode is enabled in Settings, New-Item doesn't. Hopefully in next update.

Dave F Over a year ago

With the accepted answer, I was able to use relative paths, which wasn't the case with the New-Item commandlet.

Cpt.Whale Over a year ago

New-Item allows an -ItemType of HardLink for a file and Junction for a directory. These do not require developer mode or admin privileges.

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Dave F · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-21 06:20:43Z

334

You can call the mklink provided by cmd, from PowerShell to make symbolic links:

cmd /c mklink c:\path\to\symlink c:\target\file

You must pass /d to mklink if the target is a directory.

cmd /c mklink /d c:\path\to\symlink c:\target\directory

For hard links, I suggest something like Sysinternals Junction.

edited Apr 21, 2019 at 6:20

Dave F

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answered Apr 5, 2011 at 9:07

Jason R. Coombs

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8 Comments

Joe Young Over a year ago

If you have a powershell profile, you can also make a quick function function mklink { cmd /c mklink $args }

DavidDraughn Over a year ago

and if you want to make a directory link, the command will be something like { cmd /c mklink /D "toDir" fromDir }

BogStandard Over a year ago

adding the /H parameter to mklink will create a hard link without the need for a third party program like Sysinternals Junction.

Cameron Oakenleaf Over a year ago

I think jocassid has the better answer. IMHO, We should try to teach how to USE PowerShell, not use exploits and hacks through cmd.exe.

Jason R. Coombs Over a year ago

@SergeVoloshenko It sure does. True, using New-Item does detect if the target is a directory, but New-Item will fail if the target does not exist whereas mklink will create the symbolic link regardless.

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

48

Add "pscx" module

No, it isn't built into PowerShell. And the mklink utility cannot be called on its own on Windows Vista/Windows 7 because it is built directly into cmd.exe as an "internal command".

You can use the PowerShell Community Extensions (free). There are several cmdlets for reparse points of various types:

New-HardLink,
New-SymLink,
New-Junction,
Remove-ReparsePoint
and others.

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered May 21, 2009 at 19:23

Keith Hill

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8 Comments

Mike T Over a year ago

Good try. Though if you want to run XP or W2K3 server in either x32 or x64, New-Symlink dosen't work. In XP it will politely tell you that you should be running Vista for this command. In W2K3 server, it flat out breaks.

Keith Hill Over a year ago

That's because XP doesn't support symlinks. That's a feature new to Vista. I believe that W2K3 server doesn't support symlinks either. You have to step up to W2K8 server to get symlink support. I'll look into why new-symlink is bombing on W2k3, it should error with a similar message to XP.

Mike T Over a year ago

I tried new-junction and that will work for me. Too bad the link functionality doesn't degrade to junctions in XP and W2K3

yzorg Over a year ago

Windows 10 users see answer stackoverflow.com/a/34905638/195755 . Windows 10 it is built-in. Copy/Paste: New-Item -Type and press tab to cycle through the options. Hardlink, SymbolicLink, and Junction appear for me. Works Win 10, Server 2016+, or older OS with Powershell 5.0 installed via Windows Management Framework 5.0+.

StackzOfZtuff Over a year ago

Answer kinda broken now (2019). Because by now PSCX commands clash with native PowerShell commands. And PSCX requires workarounds to even install. => github.com/Pscx/Pscx/issues/23 (And that ticket has been unfixed since 2017. So I don't expect a real fix anytime soon.)

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quigi · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-10 13:18:58Z

30

In Windows 7, the command is

fsutil hardlink create new-file existing-file

PowerShell finds it without the full path (c:\Windows\system32) or extension (.exe).

answered Apr 10, 2012 at 13:18

quigi

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4 Comments

mopsled Over a year ago

fsutil hardlink requires new-file and existing-file to be on the same drive. If that matters to you, use cmd's mklink /c instead.

Dev Over a year ago

@mopsled Hardlinks, by definition, must be on the same volume as the target, this is not a limitation specific to fsutil (or Windows for that matter)

jshall Over a year ago

is there an equivalent for "soft" symlinks and junctions?

FooF Over a year ago

Worked also on a Windows10 system.

bviktor · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-24 14:02:57Z

16

New-Symlink:

Function New-SymLink ($link, $target)
{
    if (test-path -pathtype container $target)
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink /d"
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink"
    }

    invoke-expression "$command $link $target"
}

Remove-Symlink:

Function Remove-SymLink ($link)
{
    if (test-path -pathtype container $link)
    {
        $command = "cmd /c rmdir"
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c del"
    }

    invoke-expression "$command $link"
}

Usage:

New-Symlink "c:\foo\bar" "c:\foo\baz"
Remove-Symlink "c:\foo\bar"

answered Oct 24, 2013 at 14:02

bviktor

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2 Comments

yzorg Over a year ago

Windows 10 users see stackoverflow.com/a/34905638/195755 . Windows 10 it is built-in. Copy/Paste: New-Item -Type and press tab to cycle through the options. Hardlink, SymbolicLink, and Junction appear for me. Works Win 10, Server 2016+, or older OS with Powershell 5.0 installed via Windows Management Framework 5.0+.

Chris Charabaruk Over a year ago

Or if the file name contains them.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

13

Try junction.exe

The Junction command line utility from SysInternals makes creating and deleting junctions easy.

MS Terminology: soft != symbolic
Microsoft uses "soft link" as another name for "junction".
However: a "symbolic link" is something else entirely.
See MSDN: Hard Links and Junctions in Windows.
(This is in direct contradiction to the general usage of those terms where "soft link" and "symbolic link" ("symlink") DO mean the same thing.)

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered May 21, 2009 at 20:59

notandy

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3 Comments

Mike T Over a year ago

The use of this utility correctly allows me to junction another directory and traverse it's subdirectories successfully. All in XP and W2K3. Just add the exe to a directory in your PATH and call it like normal.

Jason R. Coombs Over a year ago

I don't think you can use junction.exe to create symbolic links.

Deleted Over a year ago

It´s better to use mklink which is shipped with Windows. If you have a Windows version which it is shipped with.

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-28 22:11:22Z

10

I combined two answers (@bviktor and @jocassid). It was tested on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012.

function New-SymLink ($link, $target)
{
    if ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major -ge 5)
    {
        New-Item -Path $link -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value $target
    }
    else
    {
        $command = "cmd /c mklink /d"
        invoke-expression "$command ""$link"" ""$target"""
    }
}

edited May 28, 2017 at 22:11

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 3, 2017 at 19:55

mhenry1384

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-28 22:07:25Z

4

You can use this utility:

c:\Windows\system32\fsutil.exe create hardlink

edited May 28, 2017 at 22:07

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 21, 2009 at 20:41

Cheeso

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2 Comments

Joey Over a year ago

It will require elevated privileges, though. Creating hardlinks usually doesn't.

JamesThomasMoon Over a year ago

This is not the correct fsutil.exe command arguments.

joshuapoehls · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-07 20:31:01Z

3

I wrote a PowerShell module that has native wrappers for MKLINK. https://gist.github.com/2891103

Includes functions for:

New-Symlink
New-HardLink
New-Junction

Captures the MKLINK output and throws proper PowerShell errors when necessary.

answered Jun 7, 2012 at 20:31

joshuapoehls

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-28 22:09:00Z

1

Actually, the Sysinternals junction command only works with directories (don't ask me why), so it can't hardlink files. I would go with cmd /c mklink for soft links (I can't figure why it's not supported directly by PowerShell), or fsutil for hardlinks.

If you need it to work on Windows XP, I do not know of anything other than Sysinternals junction, so you might be limited to directories.

edited May 28, 2017 at 22:09

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 29, 2011 at 15:36

anon

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Comments

Steven · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-10 15:31:21Z

-3

I found this the simple way without external help. Yes, it uses an archaic DOS command but it works, it's easy, and it's clear.

$target = cmd /c dir /a:l | ? { $_ -match "mySymLink \[.*\]$" } | % `
{
    $_.Split([char[]] @( '[', ']' ), [StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries)[1]
}

This uses the DOS dir command to find all entries with the symbolic link attribute, filters on the specific link name followed by target "[]" brackets, and for each - presumably one - extracts just the target string.

answered Apr 10, 2013 at 15:31

Steven

1

1 Comment

Allanrbo Over a year ago

Is this an answer for a different question?

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